were meant to comfort himself as much as the children.
“Shit!” Lieutenant Strong muttered, a bit under his breath but with great authority.
“The children!” Julia cried out.
“The children are fine,” the lieutenant replied, turning to the panic-stricken woman. “But the bastards shot down the rest of my crew,” he added. “Our supplies.”
“What's our move LT?” Renaldo asked.
Staring out into the heavy rain for a long moment, his eyes never flinching, Lieutenant Jack Strong finally replied.
“Let's go be soldiers.”
Fuck it. Two tears in a bucket.
He thought back to the original crash, of course. To the feeling he had carried in the bottom of his stomach throughout his entire career. He'd cheated death.
Being the single survivor of a skiff landing gone wrong had made Jack appreciate the things around him so much more. Yet, he had carried a sense of burden as well. Almost as if he felt a touch of guilt with him. Not guilt for the crash, which the authorities had investigated and cleared of any wrongdoing.
He felt guilty for continuing his life while all of those around him had been cemented into a fiery death. Jack felt as though a part of each of their souls remained with him. Even to this day.
Lieutenant Jack Strong had become just that. Strong. At least in terms of soldiering. Professionally speaking, there were none that were stronger. While on a personal level he remained distant to most.
Fear of losing them, possibly, or fear of the other shoe finally catching up to him and dropping with swift judgment. Inflicting pain onto any and all who had become close to him.
And so Jack remained a soldier's soldier, while keeping to himself outside of the uniform.
“You cannot go out there. You just can't.” Julia said.
“No choice.” Jack replied.
He'd began to check his weaponry carefully. Knowing in his heart that is was minutes away from being broken in well.
“If you go out there, those things will kill you. Both of you! And we'll be stuck here to die, just as we were before.” the frantic woman replied.
“If we don't go out there our supplies are useless,” Jack replied, turning to the woman for a moment. “Assuming they are still intact.”
“Something is,” Renaldo replied, using an electronic sensor that mounted to the side of his rifle in order to confirm it. “Some sort of beacon from what I can make of it.”
“It means Bailey did things by the book. Even under pressure.” Lieutenant Strong said with renewed confidence.
“The son of a bitch was known for it.” Renaldo responded.
“He did his job, now let's hope Wesley does the same and gets some fucking help in here,” Jack replied. “While we go do our job.”
“It'll work,” Lieutenant Strong commented, both men having edged themselves out into the rain. “Or at least it should.”
“Let's hope so.” his sniper replied.
Then, with a deep incline of his right arm, Jack hurled a live grenade nearly out of sight. It digital masterpiece of pain slicing through the hammer of rain and shaking the ground with a thunderous bang nearly a hundred-yards away.
Without so much as a word, both soldiers began sprinting away from the makeshift safe-house and into the direction opposite of the explosion.
They had ran nearly four-hundred yards when Jack motioned the sniper down into cover. Feeling as though they had made enough ground.
“How are we looking on the beacon?” Jack asked.
“As far as I can tell, we're still nearly a hundred-yards out. And I'm already seeing wreckage?” Renaldo replied.
“You will,” Jack said, skimming his eyes onto the faint horizon filled with rain as his mind drifted back through his years of military service. “I've seen a few go down in my time. Brace yourself for the worst, because the odds of someone making it out of the crash alive,” he said with a pause. “They aren't good.”
“Figured as much.” Renaldo said, skimming the horizon as well, though he did so with the aid of a sniper's scope.
“Take the bait?” Jack asked.
“Seem to have. I see nearly a dozen of the bastards in my scope. More than likely they will figure it out quick enough though, may have to shoot our way back in.” Renaldo said.
“Be sure to get footage of whatever in the fuck it is we're dealing with.” Jack said.
“On it.” Renaldo responded, clicking a sequence of two buttons which began to digitally record the findings of his scope into the gun's internal hard drive.
“I wouldn't worry too much dear. The lieutenant seems capable of doing a good job.” the general said, doing his best to comfort Julia as they both awaited a sign of hope.
“I know,” she replied, trying to remain positive. “I just pray the children made it to safety.”
“As do I.” the general replied, standing beside the besieged woman as he thought of a colony that once was.
Colony twelve-seven. At least that was its official name, though its name became irrelevant as the dying began.
A small group of miners had originally filed a report. A written account of strange writings they had discovered on the walls of a nearby cavern.
They had been thought mad, or perhaps even victims of exhaustion. But when the group made a second trip, returning with photographs of the writing, their report became the top priority of the colony.
Not that it mattered.
After sending an investigative group to the site with no return, and then a second, the general knew they were in trouble. Though the souls around him refused to accept the severity of their condition, the general had triggered the distress beacon himself.
And as the moments of their first encounter with the Succubus soldiers became a reality, the general had already began packing children away to safety. His quick thinking, along with the helping hands of Julia, had been the determining factor of the children's survival.
And though, for hours, they were forced to listen to the pleading screams of colonists through the thickened-doors of their shelter, they remained positive. Julia knew of the general's military background. And the general knew of the swift action that his military would take in order to help them.
He'd expected an entire Earth Defense carrier ship, though a part of him knew it was but wishful thinking. Their society had expanded far beyond the protection of such mighty ships. As predicted, they had sent a smaller ship filled with Earth Defense Marines. Investigate the beacon and report back to the fleet. It was protocol.
He'd comforted Julia's fears many times with stories of Earth Defense soldiers by the hundreds, even thousands, landing to save them from such a dire enemy. But as a half-dozen soldiers of ill-manner and a look of aggravation showed up at their doorstep, the general felt as though his military had let him down.
That is until Jack and Renaldo had volunteered to go out into the rain, the entire area covered with a new species of damned-killers, for the sake of bringing supplies back.
Selflessness. The mark of a true soldier.
“Fuck man, I don't want to die. You do it!” Renaldo said with conviction, though he did so in a hushed voice.
“I'm not asking, I'm telling.” Lieutenant Strong replied with a growl.
A supply crate nearly twenty-feet away. Luminous blue flashing being emitted from its top as a light blinked on delay. The thick steel case was one of two, with the second having fallen into a ravine nearby. Its blue light giving away the position.
“Remember back on Galveston Seven? Remember, you said that you owed me one,” Renaldo asked. “I took a hop for you and nearly died?”
“Shit,” Jack replied, knowing he'd been bested. “That was years ago!”
“There's no expiration date on that one. I got shot!”
“Alright, damn,” Lieutenant Strong confessed. “But we do this my way.”
“Let's hear it.” the sniper replied.
“You make it up to that hill,” Jack said,
pointing out the direction of a nearby elevation of rock. “You pan the entire area and clear me to go. Then you double-time to the crash site and figure things out. When you come back through, I'll have a pack filled and waiting in that spot,” the lieutenant said, adjusting his finger's aim to a spot near the first supply crate. “You grab it and haul ass right behind me. Gun at the ready, just in case.”
“Got it.” Renaldo said with a nod.
“And Renaldo,” Lieutenant Strong said, grabbing the rushed sniper by his arm. “After this shit we're even.”
“You got it boss. Good luck.” the sniper replied, nodding once more and then breaking off into the direction of the hill. Though he did so with caution and silence.
“Good luck?” Jack mumbled as he thought of their stumbling onto such a capable foe, a skiff filled with his soldiers crashing down and the prospect of having to load up satchels full of supplies. Doing so in the wide-open while praying none of the demons caught sight of him. “Now there goes a damn comedian right there.”
“I don't understand?” Chandra said, stunned by the news.
“The whole damn chopper, I seen it with my own eyes,” Wesley replied, grabbing her above the elbows to enforce the truth. “They're gone.”
She offered no reply. Just a heartfelt sobbing.
“Cry for them later. Right now, you need to forget about that shit and worry about these kids I brought up. They're starving and scared. Alright?” Wesley said.
Though she continued to cry, Chandra began to close her emotions down for the moment, nodding and doing her best to calm down.
“If you can see them to the